Misery Loves Company
by Aeanagwen
Summary: Yamagi tries to find a place to be alone. Turns out a mechanic isn't the only one good at finding boltholes. (Set during the last episode's timeskip, as the Tekkadan survivors are being brought to Earth courtesy of Azee and Echo.)


_Notes: So, I've been wanting to write about Yamagi and Chad dating since that last episode came out. This fic is definitely NOT that. It might be a prelude, though._ _It is, regardless of anything else, my guess on how two people who never so much as glanced at each other in the series might have had a chance to spend a bit more time together._

* * *

After the third time Yamagi misses an instruction, the mechanic—a girl Yamagi doesn't know, now that Echo's back on ship piloting duties—tips back and sighs hard.

"Look, no offense?" she begins, in a tone that's straining not to be sharp but clearly ran out patience half a million miles ago. "But you're clearly not all here right now, and at this rate, you're either going to get yourself hurt, or mess something up that gets someone _else_ hurt later. We've got our own mechanics. Why don't you go be with your friends?"

He doesn't want to be anywhere _near_ his friends, but Yamagi lets go of the wrench he's holding, wishing fleetingly that it could at least clang satisfyingly to the ground, and turns away, pushing off from the ground hard towards the exit.

He thinks he hears his name spoken from somewhere in the din—Yukinojo, probably—but turns his head away, and leaves the hangar.

He doesn't know the Sawback's layout, not like he does—did, he thinks, heart clenching with yet another grief—the Isaribi's, but it's an armored ship, like the Hotarubi had been; there are only so many design plans it can have. He wanders, looking for an observation deck or private room.

He finally finds a deserted deck near the bottom level. Why it's so empty is obvious right away: aside from the view being partly blocked by the gunmetal gray curve of one of the transport bays, the walkway drops off into a sheer metal wall, a fall of some twenty or thirty feet down to the next level. Too, the engine room is nearby, so the sound every tiny course adjustment the ship makes reverberates through the walls, much louder than it does topside. If someone didn't spend their every waking moment around machines, diving off of catwalks with total confidence in the absence of gravity, they'd probably find it all ridiculously distracting. As it is, Yamagi sighs, long and slow, letting the tension leak out of him. In the most basic possible nod to safety protocols, there is in fact a handrail protecting the walkway. He leans back on it, lets his eyes fall half-closed, and watches the stars.

Time passes. If he were on the Isaribi, he'd would be able to tell how much just by listening to the hum of the engine. As it is… He'll stay until he gets hungry, he decides.

In the belly of the ship, the engine cycles to a lower output mode, and the ever-present hum quiets. Then, and only then, does Yamagi hear the sound of someone else in the room breathing. He turns towards the thready, uneven exhalations with an ugly start.

The passage stretches out in front of him, empty as it was when he walked in. Yamagi stands quite still, listening. Gradually, it dawns on him that the breathing is coming from above him. Wounded temper still brimming, he looks up and scans the dim ceiling. Sure enough, up along the far back of the room, one of the Tekkadan lilies stares at him from the back of someone's jacket, its petals fuzzy and gray in the deep shadows. Whoever-it-is is perched on a maintenance platform, a square sheet of metal that slides in and out of the wall near a local control panel, meant to set a tool chest on or brace against in low gravity. Other than the platform itself, though, nothing's been pulled aside or opened up along the wall, and the person doesn't have so much as a tool belt, much less a crate full of wrenches and pliers. He also hasn't moved, one hand and a dark head all that's visible where he's curled in on himself over tucked-up knees.

Yamagi goes on staring for a while longer. The boy's hand is twitching intermittently, which could mean he's asleep and dreaming, maybe about something innocuous, but more likely about events of the last few days. If that's the case, well, he's not unique for having nightmares, and Yamagi can slip away with no more than a second or two of guilt.

Unfortunately, it might also be a sign of feedback from the Alaya-Vijnana implant, lingering involuntary nerve firing caused by links to machines that hadn't been tuned properly, or which had slipped out of sync somehow. The mechanics here don't have the data—probably not even the equipment—to give all of Tekkadan's A-V users the regular check-ups Miss Merribit had instituted. Regardless of how much Yamagi wants to claim himself a crawlspace and never have to face human interaction again, if someone's implant is giving them trouble, Yamagi needs to bring them to Miss Merribit or the old man.

He sighs, and kicks himself towards the ceiling.

"Hey," he says softly as he approaches. "You awake?"

The boy doesn't stir as Yamagi gets close enough to recognize him—Yamagi's seen lots of people clutching the controls of Tekkadan's mobile suits, but there's only one who matches a skin tone so dark to hands so oversized for the bony wrists they're affixed to.

He'd assumed it was a boy, from the coiled posture and the hideaway, but as far as he knows, Chad is older than him by at least a year or two.

"…Chad?" Yamagi ventures, reaching out to catch himself on the wall before he drifts straight into the ceiling.

Chad twitches again, a full-body flinch this time, so sharp and sudden that Yamagi himself winces in sympathy. As it passes, though, Chad's head lifts, slowly, like someone peeking over a wall that might or might not have unknown threats lurking on the other side. His gaze finds Yamagi's feet, and trains slowly up until it lands on his face. Beneath the dim, uneven illumination of the overhead running light, Chad's cheeks look every bit as hollow as they had back in the CGS days. The skin beneath his eyes is bruise-dark and puffy, and Yamagi feels a pinprick of regret for waking him. His eyes are clear, though, if… Not hard, Yamagi thinks, staring back at him in the widening gap of silence, just still, like he's never been woken a day in his life for something other than bad news, but whatever the world is about to lay at his feet, it almost certainly isn't going to be the worst thing he's seen.

The silence goes on for a few more unheard beats, a tempo of exhaustion, before finally Chad lifts his head up a bit more, his back straightening, even as his shoulders tense and bow.

"Did something happen?" he asks.

The desire to escape thrums in Yamagi's skin like engine noise, an unreasoning wave that's so much stronger than the momentary guilt he'd been contemplating back down below, when he'd had that opportunity to just leave and hadn't taken it. But Chad is Responsible—Yamagi has never exchanged more than three words with him, but even he knows that much—and if Yamagi turned tail and ran away, Chad would get worried and follow. As if he needs any _more_ stress, with sleeplessness already painting black half-moons beneath his eyes.

Yamagi lets his gaze slide away, turning his head and leaving Chad to stare instead at the fall of his hair.

"You were dreaming," is all he says. "That's all. You don't have to get up."

"…Ah," Chad says, the single syllable tangled somewhere between confusion, relief, and simple weariness. After a few more seconds, he adds, "Sorry you had to bother."

"It's fine." The words taste mechanical in Yamagi's mouth. He parrots them out, and the moment of shame drains away, back into the empty weight of having nothing to do and less drive to do it. Orga is dead. Shino is dead. Mikazuki, dead. Barbatos, dead. _Tekkadan_ is dead. He can't protect any of what's left, but there's so _little_ left in any case. People like Kudelia and Eugene will be planning what to do from here on out. He has time, still, to drag himself into caring again, but right now…

"I just wanted to be alone somewhere for a while," he finds himself saying. "I didn't think of trying the ceiling."

Another measure of quiet follows this, then Chad hums, a low, barely audible sound. He shifts, and the sound of his voice comes bouncing back from different walls as he turns his face away. "Human Debris get good at staying out of sight."

That's Chad's version of taking the compliment, Yamagi supposes, and he feels an awful, tiny curve at the corner of his mouth at the black humor of the whole situation.

"Eugene told me to go get some sleep," Chad goes on after another silent moment, then adds, abashed, "He ordered me to, actually."

"Why not the barracks?" Yamagi looks down towards the observation window. At this angle, he can't see the transport bay anymore, just the starfields, endless and glittering and cold.

"I tried there. But the kids are still upset, and…" He trails off, and the silence creeps back in, skulking around the perimeters of the conversation like a starving something at the edge of firelight. It gets so close Yamagi imagines he can feel the breath of it on the back of his neck, then Chad sighs, and his words chase it away again. "Dante caught me trying to help. He ran me off."

Yamagi doesn't respond, and Chad fills in the space with, "He knows I can sleep anywhere out of sight. He told me to check down here." Another pause, shorter this time, and then a rueful sound, not anything concrete enough to be a chuckle. "Though now that I'm here, I wish I'd thought to grab a blanket."

Yamagi dips his head into another smile, feeling the soft hitch of amusement in his breath. "Hindsight," he whispers.

"Yeah, I guess so."

They both fall silent again, and if it isn't any warmer, at least it doesn't feel so empty. Yamagi glances behind him, gaze skimming over the wall. A rectangular outline in the metal suggests there's another maintenance platform not far away—this one for accessing the ventilation system, judging by the proximity to a grated shaft. Yamagi reaches out and rests his gloved fingertips over it.

"Do you mind?" he asks, barely a breath, and feels Chad's gaze return to him; sees, out of the corner of his eyes, the other boy lean forward to look at where he's placed his hand.

"Oh. No, it's fine."

"Mm." Yamagi presses lightly at the shape in the wall. It gives inward, then clicks and ejects back outwards, a thin metal square a little over two feet long a side. He tugs himself onto it, mirroring Chad's posture from before—arms around his legs, chin tucked onto his knees. He flips up the collar of his jacket, and turns to lean against the wall.

"It's—all right if I stay too, right?" Chad asks, a whisper in the shadows, uncertain, not half as conspiratorial as Yamagi thinks the situation warrants. Children playing hide-and-seek, the both of them.

He tugs his jacket tighter around himself. In its pocket, still, a clump of bandages knots his stomach with their presence, and with grief. He blinks hard, willfully, and forces his voice to an even, level softness. "Yes. It's fine."

"Okay. I—will, then." Chad shifts again, maybe laying down, maybe turning away. "Good—night?"

"…Good night," Yamagi answers, and closes his eyes, listening to the hum of the ship's engine, and the slowly evening sound of Chad's breath.


End file.
